Those Brand-Name Musicals

Back in the days of vaudeville — or to be precise, a 1959 musical’s version of vaudeville — a wise old stripper delivered some immortal advice for anyone starting out in showbiz: “You gotta have a gimmick, if you wanna have a chance.” Thus spake the trumpet-tooting Mazeppa, addressing the title character of “Gypsy.”

Those words still resonate today for those who would succeed on Broadway, where audiences are fickle, and attention spans are short. But Miss Mazeppa, pro that she was, would surely want to tweak her motto for contemporary usage.

On the Broadway of the 21st century, especially in the very risky and very expensive arena of musicals, it’s not enough just to have a gimmick. If you want the crowds to come, you gotta have a brand name. And if that name comes from a popular movie that people over 30 remember with affection, then — fingers crossed — you’re in business, baby.

That would certainly seem to the philosophy behind the lineup of film-inspired musicals arriving this season, a roster that includes “Rocky,” “Aladdin” and “Bullets Over Broadway,” along with the recently opened “The Bridges of Madison County.” Producers are banking on these shows to exhale the seductive, comforting aroma of warmed-up leftovers from favorite meals. Their titles pulse with the subliminal promise that if you loved the movie, you’ll like reliving it with songs even more.

Within this shared approach, there are variations. “Bullets Over Broadway,” adapted by Woody Allen from his 1994 film, is what might be called a collage musical, one that culls its score from existing standards. In any case, “Bullets Over Broadway” as a brand name is turning out to be a mixed blessing. On the positive side, that name comes from a beloved cinematic comedy that received seven Academy Award nominations.

But in light of the recent, widely discussed allegations surrounding Mr. Allen’s relationship with his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow when she was a child, that name could be considered as much a repellent as it is a draw. Publicists for the show might do well to shift the emphasis from Mr. Allen to Susan Stroman, its director and choreographer, who translated another comic film, “The Producers” (by another movie individualist, Mel Brooks), into a Tony-studded smash.

“Rocky,” inspired by the 1976 Oscar-winning boxing film written by and starring Sylvester Stallone, faces another kind of resistance. This tale of a tenacious underdog has suffered from the distortions that in time overtake ripely sentimental rooting flicks. In memory, “Rocky,” the father of many sequels, tends to turn into a parody of itself.

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Adam Jacobs as the title character in “Aladdin.”CreditCylla von Tiedemann

One of the challenges facing this show’s adapters — who include Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens (songs), Thomas Meehan (the book, with Mr. Stallone) and Alex Timbers (direction) — is that of stripping off any accumulated crust of camp. True, a version of “Rocky” the musical has been a hit in Hamburg, Germany. But it’s hard not to worry that “Yo, Adrian!” (Rocky’s immortal mating call) might sound fresher in German.

By comparison, the producers of “Aladdin” have it easy. Like the 1992 film it is based on, “Aladdin” is a Disney production, and Disney has been turning its animated pictures into Broadway musicals since “Beauty and the Beast” in 1994.

The formula — which reached its pinnacle with the international megahit “The Lion King” — isn’t foolproof. (Hello, “The Little Mermaid”! And hello, “Tarzan”!)But tourists who have been programmed to seek out all things Disney guarantee a strong initial audience for this whimsical variation on an “Arabian Nights” fantasy. Whether flying carpets and a shape-shifting genie will be morphed into credible stagecraft remains to be seen.

But at least one of the show’s songs, “A Whole New World” by Alan Menken and Tim Rice, is already tattooed on the memories of those who were moviegoing children two decades ago, not to mention the millions who have since been hypnotized by it via babysitting DVD players. Having simply written the title, I now can’t get the tune out of my head.

(This, in turn, leads me into a dark reverie: What if Disney decided to turn its “It’s a Small World” theme park ride into a Broadway show, with that one, insufferable song playing endlessly? No, perish the thought. I’m sorry I brought it up.)

By the way, the season’s two big musical revivals are of shows that became much celebrated movies. “Cabaret,” the 1966 Kander and Ebb musical about nightclubbing in Weimar Germany, was the basis for the sensational 1972 film, directed by Bob Fosse. When the stage version was revived in 1998, the show (which incorporated numbers that had been added for the film) became such a hit for the Roundabout Theater Company that it stuck around for 2,377 performances.

Now the Roundabout is bringing it back, with the same director and co-director (Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall) and one of the same stars: Alan Cumming, who won a Tony as the M.C. (Michelle Williams will make her Broadway debut as the divinely decadent Sally Bowles.)

Then there’s “Les Misérables,” the enduring blockbuster adapted by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil from Victor Hugo’s doorstop novel about life on the barricades (and in the sewers) in 19th-century Paris. First staged on Broadway in 1987, “Les Misérables” lasted until 2003. It was then brought back, with unseemly haste, in a 2006 revival.

Now here it comes again. In the meantime, of course, there was the 2012 movie adaptation, which racked up a lot of Oscar nominations and had everybody humming “I Dreamed a Dream” ad infinitum. In other words, the brand-name recognition of “Les Misérables” is greater than ever. Its reincarnation may be the ultimate example of the belief that on Broadway, familiarity breeds not contempt but big box office.